


On the Planet of Gurdall

by GenaricFanficWriter (orphan_account)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Political Alliances, Politics, The New Republic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/GenaricFanficWriter
Summary: It's been a year since the destruction of the second Death Star, and the Galactic Empire is long gone. In it's place is a desperate political feud between various planetary factions, including The New Republic. One planet, Gurdall, is under constant threat of attack by all of these powers, due to a mysterious resource recently discovered on their planet.





	1. The Death of One King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king is dead. And he's left no heir. The Council of Gurdall tries to find the next successor to the throne.

The King of Gurdall died one night, alone in his bed. He had no visitors, he had no doctors watching him, no nurse, no guards. He simply died, alone, and afraid. No one was there to hear his last words, the last words of a man who had seen so much. He had stories to tell, stories that died with him. When we lost King Lars I, we lost a good deal of Gurdall’s history. Perhaps if someone was there, if a nurse overstayed her welcome, if his brother decided to drop by to visit him unannounced, and if these stories, these lessons were told and listened, it would have prevented the tragedy to come. But alas, when he died, there was no one by his side.

The King was not well liked. He had a wife, he had a brother, and he had a son, but he spent most of his time away from this family, doing what, no one knows. Because of this, he had no close friends, no allies, nothing of the sort. But most important to our story, is that at the time of his death, King Lars I had no heir.

“What do we do?” asked Lord Neblen. He was sat in an old hall in the castle, one which had not been visited in quite some time. Under the rule of the Empire, there was no need for the traditional council the halls lay welcome too. Under the Empire, there was no real government, only shadow puppets that acted out the Empire’s every call, move, and demand. The Lords were left normal men, powerless, their title nothing more than an honorific. Maybe this too, could have prevented the tragedy to come. Because none of them had real power, none of them knew what to do when left in a situation such as this. Most their life had been under the rule of the Galactic Empire, and when the Empire fell, so did their only anchor.

“King Lars has a son. Jack,” suggested Lord Dianhal. Dianhal was the oldest of the Lords, and ultimately the wisest, but they never seemed to pay much attention to him. The way of the Lords was arrogant and crude.

“No, no. Jack is too young to take over the throne. Putting him in power would be chaos, to say the least,” Lord Reilan said, and he reached for another small, cooked sea bird. The hunger of the Lords was ravenous. It was joked in the streets that the only reason they attended these councils was to get their share of food, and leave.

Since the destruction of the Empire, food had been hard to come by. While much the Empire did was wrong, it could be said that as long as you weren’t an enemy, it gave you access to great portions of export and trade from other planets. This was ultimately untrue, and several planets were left destitute and starving, losing more than they gained from the Empire, but no one paid much attention to them.

It’s easy to admire the past when you do not have to deal with the hardships of it. It’s for this reason that the feeling we know to be nostalgia arises. We focus on the greatest, most memorable aspects, without having to face the very real threats it provided. Gurdall was plenty a victim to this illness, and it drove them mad. The Lords loved the Empire. Of course, the Empire was good only to these Lords, and only good to these Lords in hopes they wouldn’t rebel. This was effective, and the Lords grew fat, cruel, foolish, and lazy. Lord Dianhal was perhaps the only Lord left with any dignity of his own.

“Who else can we place in charge, then? Jack is Lars’ only son,” Lord Dianhal put forth once more. It wasn’t a foolish choice, but one that the other Lords were never to accept.

“What about Sir Lee? He has enough royal blood in him,” spoke Lord Matan, breaking his silence. Lord Matan wasn’t as crude as the other Lords, he was simply ignorant from his royal upbringing. In any other scenario, the idea of putting a knight in charge was one that would be laughed at, but Sir Lee was the half-brother to the late King Lars. If there was anyone they could trust to put in charge it was him.

Lord Neblen was elected to be sent the next day on the back of his jeryam to Fort Ronsban, Sir Lee’s home, much to his disfavor. Lord Neblen wasn’t used to travel, leaving his home only when absolutely necessary. He didn’t have an adventurers spirit, nor an adventurer’s knowledge. Instead he had a lazy man’s soul, body, and brain, which had not been provoked in years. He was sent out in the early morning, before even the sun had risen.

The journey was boring, so I won’t take much liberty in telling you the exact details. His trek took a little less than a week, but it wasn’t hard by any means. In fact, it was quite painless. His jeryam was a sturdy, strong creature that meant he didn’t feel the rubble of the road. And of the road, he made his route purely on the soft, paved roads. All in all, he simply sat on his creature, putting in little work. He was carried those great hundreds of miles towards Sir Lee’s home.

Of course, Sir Lee wasn’t a perfect choice, far from it, in fact. For one thing, he was far too old to be placed in charge as king. He was fifty years old, over a third the lifespan of the average Gurdallian male. Beyond that, he had no official royal training. Due to not being of true royal blood, he was not ever in consideration of a royal position, and thus decided to train as a knight. As far as anyone knew however, he had no bitter taste of the King. In fact, he adored his older brother, and wished him no ill will.

It was for these reasons that Sir Lee was surprised when he received a visit from Lord Neblen.


	2. Prologue

Perhaps one of the largest falsehoods regarding the fall of the ill-fated Galactic Empire, and the rise of the equally ill-fated New Republic is that the transition was an easy, and relatively peaceful one. As is the case in most severe transitions of governmental power, there was a great deal of chaos and violence. 

For one thing, The New Republic were seen as terrorists by the common people. As much as they’d wish it to be baseless accusations, the tragedy of the destruction of both Death Star 1 and 2 was fresh in their subject’s minds. Though the Galactic Empire was disliked by many, the senseless violence and countless deaths caused by these attacks were seen as extraneous. Most displeasant was the destruction of the second Death Star. Writers and participants in the Rebellion’s ideals were disgusted that the Rebels allowed such a thing to happen. For on the original DS-1, the main inhabitants were soldiers, stormtroopers, and imperial officers. The second battle station was incomplete, however. This resulted in the slaughter of innocent slaves and builders, a fact that the Rebellion was more than aware of, but ignored under the pretense that the destruction of the Death Star would prevent the death of even more innocent people. “Who are they to decide the cost of a human life?” asked Zalsber, the writer of  _ Palpatine’s Royal Highness _ , a pro-rebellion newspaper at the time. And his sentiment was seen across the galaxy.

Another thing to consider is that the highest members of the Rebellion were Mon Mothma and Leia Organa. Mothma was a member of the same Senate that granted Chancellor Palpatine power over the galaxy, and Leia Organa was a princess. Neither, it was believed, had to work their way into their positions of power. This was ultimately untrue, but the galactic flow of information, especially under the totalitarian regime of the Empire, was difficult to manage without being bombarded by propaganda and partisan writings from both Imperial mass media, and Alliance newsletters. 

Whether the violence was a necessary means to an end or not, it is well documented that this led to a fracture in the Rebellion. Both the well-established, and rather wordy, Alliance to Restore the Republic, and the newly formed Pacifistic Rebellion divided the rebellions supporters. Their violence was only as much as the Empire produced, sometimes even less, thought the Alliance. Violence, in any major capacity, simply brings the world one step closer to the villainy of the Empire, believed the Pacifists. Either way, the dueling Rebellions weren’t the only splintering parties.

When the Rebellion became The New Republic, they tried to destroy any evidence of the Empire. Perhaps the most noticeable of these erasures was that of the calendar. The dating system galaxy wide was changed to center around the Battle of Yavin, with years being written Before the Battle of Yavin, and After the Battle of Yavin. This was compared to the Empire changing their calendar to center around the creation of the Empire. Imperial sympathizers claimed that centering the calendar around an Empire’s foundation, and centering the calendar around a mass terrorist attack were two very different things. The Pacifists simply shook their head in agreement. 

The Imperial sympathizers were plenty in the rise of the New Republic. Whether they be victims of propaganda, ex-warlords and officers, or businessmen who preferred the Empire’s way of doing things, small Imperial factions were spread out around the galaxy. Some planets far away from constant communication, whether the blockade be geographical or political, still believed they were under Imperial rule, and continued to believe so many years after the battle on the moon of Endor. Eventually, these various factions across the galaxy became what we now know as The First Order.

The most interesting political group to emerge was that of the Trade Federation. The Trade Federation was assimilated into the Galactic Empire, but after their destruction, technically an individual organization, they managed to escape dismantlement by the Republic. Instead, they harassed several small planets into giving them majority cuts in trade for the sake of protection and independence. These contracts were often corrupt, and gave the planets little power in return for the Trade Federations little assistance. 

Other political powers popped up, but they aren’t much of note for this story. The Bounty Hunters Guild operated on several Outer Rim planets, and in fact controlled quite a few, but in the main system they were not often seen. And of course some smaller galactic federations were birthed, usually only between a handful of planets, the most noticeable being one simply titled The Galactic Federation.

The death of the Empire created a political vacuum all these alliances tried to fill, but all that they led to was turmoil. Planets with small militaries were often terrorized by these larger factions for control, and even those with massive military units were no match for system wide armies. 

It’s this political rivalry that births the story you are about to read.


End file.
